


No Plan

by superfrog



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, F/F, Kisses, Lovers to ?, Useless Lesbians, just mentioned the others but mostly posie xx, posie - Freeform, that posie kiss we never got hmph, wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 04:13:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18087215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfrog/pseuds/superfrog
Summary: How else can the stars feel complete unless they’re burning? – It’s called edging, lads. (Small vignettes of little-planned thrills.)





	No Plan

**Through closed doors.**

The hardest thrill, Josie found, is the kind that sets you on edge without giving you a chance to scream in delight, in excitement, in fear. No one can fault her for feeling all three when Penelope Park is involved. 

The uphill battle starts the same way they ended. This is a continuous loop, she thinks, staring down the devil across the hall and trying to keep the corners of her lips from turning upwards, and trying to keep her hands to herself. It shouldn’t be too hard. Lizzie’s talking again about how she shouldn’t even look at the devil lest it head on over to them, and Josie tears her gaze away like a dutiful sister. In her mind’s eye, the image remains the same.

Penelope Park, Penelope Park, so infamous to Josie’s soul that her entire name has ingrained itself in the thrumming wrist-pulse and everywhere else life can beat within skin.

 

**Trapped in a web.**

Rafael is an _OK_ kisser. He’s not the best, and his dedication to his brother is something that Josie can understand more than she knows she can. But when she kisses him, it’s not guilt for Lizzie that stirs the ugly black hole at the pit of her stomach. The name attached to it cannot be spoken yet. Lizzie would call that summoning the Devil, and the Devil would have a hell of a time watching Josie tied up like this. She'd call it retribution, and she would laugh like a righteous God.

 

**I was never ready.**

Penelope Park knocks at her door and makes her clench her fist around the sweet note Hope left for her.

“Hey, Jo Jo.” _God. Don’t smile. Don’t smile._ “Need an escort?”

There’s a heavy lump in her throat so she swallows it, replaces it with the same words that Lizzie would say – stronger than her own, sure, and if Lizzie had said it, it would’ve hit a lot harder, bitten a lot deeper. “Sure. Do you know anyone whose heart isn’t made of stone?”

“Look, I am sorry about earlier.” _Yeah, right._ “I saw a chance to make Lizzie suffer and, uh…I shot my shot.” 

There she goes again. She makes everything sound easy. She made breaking up sound easy. It still hurt. “Why can’t you just ease up on her?”

“She sucks the air out of every room you’re in.”

“She's my _twin_ ,” Josie replies defiantly. Something in her chest twists harder the longer she looks at Penelope. It was unfair how she looked so, so perfect. Still, her own heart twists into an unwilling scowl. “We can share oxygen.”

“Are you sharing love interests now, too? Because she’s the only one with a date.” No, of course Penelope wouldn’t get it. They couldn’t, not now, and at least Lizzie wouldn’t leave her. She takes her silence as permission to go on and twist that wound even deeper. “See? You have crawled so far down the co-dependence rabbit hole that you think taking care of yourself is selfish. But it's not, so when are you gonna take care of _you_?”

That wasn’t the truth, was it? Josie wasn’t like Penelope. They weren’t alike at all. Opposites don’t attract, and they would just wear each other out until they were nothing. They broke up for a reason, and Josie was _fine_ just thinking that.

“I take care of myself _just. Fine_.”

“Oh, really? Party starts in five. It’s a shame you spent all of that time helping Lizzie get ready.”

 

**One was never going to be enough.**

Back then, kissing Penelope was more magic than Josie ever knew could exist in the world.

Part of it, maybe, was that she was sure that Lizzie wouldn’t take this from her. Penelope only looked at _her_ , and there was comfort and security and loyalty that Josie couldn’t have imagined from anyone else but her own sister. But this love was different, and new, and dear, sweet dad, despite initial stunned blinking, accepted it with his whole heart, and Josie couldn’t ask for better, and nothing could make it better.

She thought this, like the selfless idiot Penelope now accuses her as.

Kissing Penelope then was a comfort. A luxury. Kissing Penelope made every inch of her skin tingle something sweet, and the aftermath made her realise how embarrassingly fast and loud her heartbeat was, thudding away in her ears, so she kissed her more like that’ll make it better. Like an idiot.

Josie thought she’d grown from that pain, but here she is, regressing back into it, into the blackhole that is Penelope Park, swallowing her whole again.

Kissing Penelope Park feels like being buried alive by the fire crackling and eating away at the tips of her toes to the ends of her hair, right until she says “I hate you” like lying will make it better. Like an idiot.

Like a selfish one.

And this beautiful, gorgeous girl, who never had any reason to look at Josie Saltzman, looks up at her and says, “I know,” and hangs onto every word she says.

So, Josie kisses her, to prove everything they’ve said was wrong, because kissing Penelope Park has to hold some kind of truth.

 

**Thelma and Louise.**

In another world, Josie would’ve tried harder for Hope. Maybe she would’ve been less afraid of Lizzie taking that from her, too.

It was fear, wasn’t it, that made her kiss Penelope then?

What is it now, in the dim, cramped broom closet – hiding like desperate fools – that pulls her closer to Penelope?

It’s not fear. Today there hasn’t been fear, not since Hope hugged her. It’s not fear that makes her feel like she’s constantly about to leap off a cliff when she sees Penelope, or like she’s constantly falling over a never-ending height – far beyond the stars to the earth, in slow-motion – anticipating Penelope to push her away when Josie puts her hands on her jaw and kisses her like she’ll stop falling.

She doesn’t.

Afterwards, when the fear returns, it returns tenfold, and she pretends that much harder she still isn’t in the thrill of the fall.

 

**The note.**

She said she wouldn’t read it, but no slug can erase the memory of Penelope Park.

Nothing ever has, and she doubts nothing ever will.

Even afterwards, Penelope looked at her like she hung the stars in the sky like pearls. Josie wasn’t blind, but she was still an idiot, it seemed, through and through, because she was hoping to hell and back that Penelope wouldn’t catch Josie looking at her the same way.

Penelope Park could tell her that she wanted to see the world on fire and Josie Saltzman would do it for her. But Penelope wouldn’t, and Josie didn’t want to. Maybe those weren’t mutually exclusive.

But maybe that’s what’s on this note, folded in her hand, all of Penelope Park’s heart in the palm of her hand. She shouldn’t have kept it in her pocket.

So here she is: the idiot of the year, sitting alone in their room while Lizzie is off apologising and talking to Hope, reconciling after all the years they’ve spent hating each other because Josie was selfish, and she wanted something all on her own. When she unfolds the note, she does it slowly, like she’s afraid she’ll set it alight from how much her hands are shaking; when she closes her eyes for strength it’s Penelope, holding her hands still, and telling her to be selfish, over and over again. It’s Penelope’s eyes, and her smile, and her voice, soft when no one else is watching and tender when they are, under tables and behind broom closets, kissing her back and hoping that Josie would just tell the truth, even if it sets the world on fire, even if it fans the cinders that are crackling at the air between both of them.

She’s halfway through the last fold when she stops, takes a breath – What was it that Penelope said to her once?

 

**Between the lines.**

“Some people just want to watch the world burn, don’t you know–,” sounding like sweet music, so close to her neck, fingers trailing along her spine and her waist and everywhere else. She hums in the silent, hot air between them, and she closes her eyes when she feels Penelope Park smile against her throat. “But only if _you_ set it on fire, Josie Saltzman.”


End file.
